Minnesota and Arizona Bills Aim to Let Developers Skirt Apple's In-App Purchase Rules

[I7guy]

Not really, nobody is talking about loan rates. This is just seeking to obfuscate and muddy the waters

As per the original article the recommendations set out by the House Judiciary Antitrust Subcommittee are proposing specific new antitrust laws to address the anticompetitive behaviour of big tech.

Much of Apples practices are firmly in the crosshairs of those proposals

Well not really muddying anything up. Apple is within it's right to manage it's app store as it sees fit, as long as more or less it's equivalent across the board. Whether or not any of this gets traction and if it gets traction how long before the dust settles is anybodies guess.

But you're right in the end, Apple could lose, but it could take over 10 years for that to happen. Or, alternatively nothing could come of all of this, since the behavior wasn't deemed to be anti-competitive.

 

[Rob_2811]

Well not really muddying anything up. Apple is within it's right to manage it's app store as it sees fit.

Until the law says otherwise.

 

[I7guy]

Until the law says otherwise.

Right, and that is why this conversation goes around in circles. Of course Apple has to comply with all laws. But at this point in time, Apple can manage it's app store the way it sees fit and to that point, nothing may change.

 

[peneaux]

No, it would be awful. Once that was an option, many developers would require that and it would ruin the experience.

Devs also want subscription for a flashlight app. Are users that stupid?

 

[Rob_2811]

Right, and that is why this conversation goes around in circles. Of course Apple has to comply with all laws. But at this point in time, Apple can manage it's app store the way it sees fit and to that point, nothing may change.

Um yeah so this thread it to discuss the proposed law changes.

By your logic the first and last post might aswell be 'nothing may change'. That adds absolutely nothing to the debate at all.

 

[I7guy]

Um yeah so this thread it to discuss the proposed law changes.

By your logic the first and last post might aswell be 'nothing may change'. That adds absolutely nothing to the debate at all.

Right. Proposed. Saying that “until the law says otherwise” doesn’t add anything either.

It’s my opinion the proposed legislation should continue to remain proposed indefinitely.

 

[jonblatho]

Sure, from a design and function perspective, makes sense.

Making users Google how to do something “makes sense” from a “design and function” perspective?

 

[Rob_2811]

Right. Proposed. Saying that “until the law says otherwise” doesn’t add anything either.

It’s my opinion the proposed legislation should continue to remain proposed indefinitely.

Erm .. what..?

 

[Bonte]

No but did you pay Microsoft or Apple when you used your Mac or PC to shop on amazon? No? Why not?

Because it is an operating system. Just like iOS and iPadOS.

Apple should have the right to police their own App Store, even to the extent they do today...as long as users can choose to "shop" in other App Store if those rules become too draconian. People should own the devices they purchase, not corporations.

Because you use a browser to buy the items on Amazon, same goes for web-apps and services that run in the browser on your iPhone.

3P sell on Amazon but they also have to take care of storing and sending the items, Amazon just collects the fee, it is very much the same. Then there are game consoles, set-top boxes, TV's and many more devices that have 3P apps and services connected to it. This is a minefield.

 

[ArtOfWarfare]

I'm so sick of seeing this ^^: The 30% has always been just for the first year. After that it has been 15% for everyone, since the App Store first opened. Now it's 15% from the git-go for small devs.

Have you sold anything through Apple's app stores? No? Maybe you should defer to people who have (like me) before you spout nonsense like that.

What you're referring to is only about monthly subscriptions/automatic recurring payments, IE, for streaming services.

Apple takes a 30% cut for every app sell (IE, if Nintendo wanted to sell Zelda: Breath of the Wild on iOS for the same price that they do on Switch, $60, they'd have to hand over $18 to Apple for that download), and every one time DLC (so Zelda's $20 DLC would require $6 going to Apple.)

Apple does virtually nothing to earn that money. Nintendo did their own marketing and spent ~500 employee-years to get the game made. Apple hosted the file and paid for a network connection. Know how insignificant that is? Every freaking customer also paid for a hard drive to store that same file and also paid for a connection to download that same file. I have a $30 raspberry pi that serves up open source files all the time - its been doing this for years and I don't care in the slightest - the cost and difficulty to me is so insignificant. Absolutely nobody thinks that Apple is providing a service worth even close to 30%. Nor is it worth 15%. It's worth somewhere below 5%. It's somewhere around as useful as being able to accept credit cards, which is generally in the 0.5-3% range. The reason people put up with it is because Apple has a monopoly - you cannot distribute your program to people with iOS devices without going through Apple.

It's as absurd as being told that no store besides Target is allowed in New York City. You want to sell a product in NYC? You have to go through Target, or else your customers have to leave New York City to get it.

 

[Rob_2811]

Have you sold anything through Apple's app stores? No? Maybe you should defer to people who have (like me) before you spout nonsense like that.

What you're referring to is only about monthly subscriptions/automatic recurring payments, IE, for streaming services.

Apple takes a 30% cut for every app sell (IE, if Nintendo wanted to sell Zelda: Breath of the Wild on iOS for the same price that they do on Switch, $60, they'd have to hand over $18 to Apple for that download), and every one time DLC (so Zelda's $20 DLC would require $6 going to Apple.)

Apple does virtually nothing to earn that money. Nintendo did their own marketing and spent ~500 employee-years to get the game made. Apple hosted the file and paid for a network connection. Know how insignificant that is? Every freaking customer also paid for a hard drive to store that same file and also paid for a connection to download that same file. I have a $30 raspberry pi that serves up open source files all the time - its been doing this for years and I don't care in the slightest - the cost and difficulty to me is so insignificant. Absolutely nobody thinks that Apple is providing a service worth even close to 30%. Nor is it worth 15%. It's worth somewhere below 5%. It's somewhere around as useful as being able to accept credit cards, which is generally in the 0.5-3% range. The reason people put up with it is because Apple has a monopoly - you cannot distribute your program to people with iOS devices without going through Apple.

It's as absurd as being told that no store besides Target is allowed in New York City. You want to sell a product in NYC? You have to go through Target, or else your customers have to leave New York City to get it.

Rent Seeking in its purest form. There needs to be robust law in place to nix this.

 

[ArtOfWarfare]

As it stands right now, smaller developers pay just 15% while the companies who pay 30% are the higher ones who are more than capable of taking the hit because they would by definition be earning more than a million dollars a year.

I would argue that the 30% cut is there is help offset the costs of running the App Store, which that $99 annual developer fee only partly covers (yet developers make such a huge deal of like it’s an arm and a leg for them).

Tiny? If I was making just under $1M a year from App sales I'd be pretty pleased. 🤣
The vast majority are in the category of "small business program" as Apple calls it.
Where do you get your stats from?


Nope. 15% buddy!

There's a lot of newbie posters chipping in on this thread who don't seem to like what's being said.
Just saying...

According to App Annie, there's 1,500 apps that make over $10M per year and 5,000 apps that make between $1M and $10M.

I think it's reasonable to think that the average app in each bucket is about 3x the lower end, and Apple takes 30% so those cancel out to be 100% of the lower end.

This means that those top 1500 apps generate Apple about $10M * 1500 = $15B/year.

The next 5000 apps generate Apple about $1M * 5000 = $5B/year.

Apple advertised themselves as passing on $35B to developers in 2020, which means that they collected around $15B total from developers. Our napkin math says that apps generating over $1M are already responsible for over 100% of what Apple has collected. Obviously we were off by a bit somewhere but the point remains that Apple makes virtually nothing off of the apps generating under $1M, so their cutting it from 30% to 15% made no difference. Half of zero is still zero for Apple.

Apple has around 3M developer accounts, each one paying $100/year. These generate about $300M/year for Apple. That $100/year is far more significant to Apple than the virtually nothing people make in sales on the 2M apps that nobody is making money off of.

 

[Rob_2811]

As it stands right now, smaller developers pay just 15% while the companies who pay 30% are the higher ones who are more than capable of taking the hit because they would by definition be earning more than a million dollars a year.

I would argue that the 30% cut is there is help offset the costs of running the App Store, which that $99 annual developer fee only partly covers (yet developers make such a huge deal of like it’s an arm and a leg for them).

It’s not all pure profit for Apple. If developers want to be able to access Apple’s user base and be able to market to them directly for free, sure. It just means that the shortfall is probably going to have to be made up for in some other way. It could be higher annual fees (which would penalise indie developers more).

At the end of the day, I am not convinced that the companies pushing for this like Epic are doing it to help other developers or the end users. They just want more money, and they will burn the App Store to the ground to get their way.

Please show your working out on the bolded part here.

You say "the 30% cut is there is help offset the costs of running the App Store, which that $99 annual developer fee only partly covers" but you haven't supported that with any fact at all.

You also say "It’s not all pure profit for Apple" I say it may not be pure profit for Apple but the App Store runs at enormous profit, the margins are huge (some analysts have estimated 90% gross margin)way above and beyond covering thier costs and is about as close to pure profit as it gets.

 

[I7guy]

Making users Google how to do something “makes sense” from a “design and function” perspective?

Yes, because all subscriptions are in one place? But nobody made anybody google anything. You opted to google this.

 

[Deguello]

Wonderful!

Now how do you get your iPhone fixed if this third-party App Store hosts software that infects your iPhone with malware?

What if that software bricks your iPhone, who pays?

What if this third-party App Store installs an app that wipes all your data. How do you get it back?

Detailed answers with complete logic, please.

You get it fixed by using the internet or accessing any company willing to perform the fix.

If the software bricks the iPhone, most likely the developer of the app would be responsible, though it’s conceivable that sufficient negligence could make the store liable.

You‘d get your data back by restoring from backup or you wouldn’t get it back.

 

[I7guy]

Rent Seeking in its purest form. There needs to be robust law in place to nix this.

Bad opinion. The market should decide.

 

[Deguello]

How do y’all feel about right to repair? Is it acceptable, in your view, for a manufacturer to require that only OEM replacement parts installed by a company resource will function? Because, after all, you didn’t have to buy the device.

Or do you think the owner of the device should be allowed to take the risk of non-OEM parts and service?

 

[I7guy]

According to App Annie, there's 1,500 apps that make over $10M per year and 5,000 apps that make between $1M and $10M.

I think it's reasonable to think that the average app in each bucket is about 3x the lower end, and Apple takes 30% so those cancel out to be 100% of the lower end.

This means that those top 1500 apps generate Apple about $10M * 1500 = $15B/year.

The next 5000 apps generate Apple about $1M * 5000 = $5B/year.

Apple advertised themselves as passing on $35B to developers in 2020, which means that they collected around $15B total from developers. Our napkin math says that apps generating over $1M are already responsible for over 100% of what Apple has collected. Obviously we were off by a bit somewhere but the point remains that Apple makes virtually nothing off of the apps generating under $1M, so their cutting it from 30% to 15% made no difference. Half of zero is still zero for Apple.

Apple has around 3M developer accounts, each one paying $100/year. These generate about $300M/year for Apple. That $100/year is far more significant to Apple than the virtually nothing people make in sales on the 2M apps that nobody is making money off of.

For $99 and maybe IAP and no distribution costs or tax collection worries make $10M. The power of the App Store.

 

[ArPe]

How do y’all feel about right to repair?

Everything is moving to SoC. CPU, GPU, storage, controller, memory on one chip. It’s easier to manufacture with less waste and environmental impact.

What kind of right to repair can you do in that case? Just get insurance with your phone and the whole thing is replaced.

 

[Deguello]

Everything is moving to SoC. CPU, GPU, storage, controller, memory on one chip. It’s easier to manufacture with less waste and environmental impact.

What kind of right to repair can you do in that case? Just get insurance with your phone and the whole thing is replaced.

Screen. Case. Mechanical switches.

Since your scenario isn‘t currently reality, maybe don’t dodge the question.

 

[Rob_2811]

Bad opinion. The market should decide.

The law should decide. You can't have corporations behaving like the mafia.

 

[ArPe]

Screen. Case. Mechanical switches.

Since your scenario isn‘t currently reality, maybe don’t dodge the question.

All those parts are covered by device warranty and device insurance. That has been a current reality for many years now.

I didn’t dodge your question. I debunked the premise that you need to repair your own device, especially because all the components are becoming too small for third party repair.

Get insurance and you won’t need to spend stupid amount of money on repair.

 

[Deguello]

All those parts are covered by device warranty and device insurance. I didn’t dodge your question. I debunked the premise that you need to repair your own device, especially because all the components are becoming too small for third party repair.

Not if they’re out of warranty. Of course a user would want to take advantage of free parts and labor under warranty.

Insurance only pays, it doesn’t necessarily dictate who does the repair. Unless you’re advocating that only the manufacturer can control that, as well.

You didn’t debunk the need for self repair. You posited a future that hasn’t arrived and applied it to today and imagined screens don’t break. Do better.

 

[jonblatho]

Yes, because all subscriptions are in one place? But nobody made anybody google anything. You opted to google this.

I guarantee you if I asked my mom — and I’d consider her pretty close to the median in tech literacy — right now how to cancel a subscription that’s billed through the App Store, she wouldn’t know. If I asked her to find it, she probably wouldn’t be able to for quite some time because the way to get there doesn’t actually make sense. She would Google it.

Again, “all your subscriptions in one place” wouldn’t have to go away. This would enable developers to allow cancelling subscriptions directly within an app, which again is where most users would likely expect such functionality to be available. You look for a redo button next to the undo button. You look for a paste button next to the copy button. You look for an unsubscribe button next to where you tapped the subscribe button. This is UI/UX common sense, if you can learn how to look past your own nose.

It’s long, long been a practice for companies providing a subscription service to make it difficult, obscure, or annoying to cancel a subscription, which is probably part of why AOL still had over two million dial-up subscribers in 2015. Apple primarily chooses “obscure,” but it’s no less sleazy (especially given recent rampant App Store scam subscription apps). Making it difficult/obscure/annoying to cancel is not how I’d like to operate — it gives me more incentive to make users want to stay, rather than forget to cancel — but Apple currently gives me no choice.

 

[I7guy]

The law should decide. You can't have corporations behaving like the mafia.

Nope, the market should decide. I guess we have a fundamental difference in that I believe that Apple with a minority position in the market should regulate it's business as it sees fit, and let the market decide if Apples business is viable, while you believe in governmental regulation.

That's okay, horses for courses.